The Forever War

Jan 29, 2009 brian rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: donald; nobody with a weak stomach

i was initially irritated by filkins refusal to widen focus and take in the broader picture, y’know, the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind the iraq war -- i wanted a top-down history starting with the geo-political chessboard and ending with boots on the ground. i was quick to realize i had put my own demands, the demands of a history book, on what is something entirely different. filkins knows that, generally speaking, the participants in wars (even in the age of internet, tivo, and cell phone) do not hav...more i was initially irritated by filkins refusal to widen focus and take in the broader picture, y’know, the ‘how’ and ‘why’ behind the iraq war -- i wanted a top-down history starting with the geo-political chessboard and ending with boots on the ground. i was quick to realize i had put my own demands, the demands of a history book, on what is something entirely different. filkins knows that, generally speaking, the participants in wars (even in the age of internet, tivo, and cell phone) do not have access or privilege to knowledge of the events in which they participate. this is the iraq war he presents.

even more impressive than filkins’s balls (so big you could attach ‘em to a crane and use ‘em to knock over the chrysler building) is the intellectual confidence to admit he just doesn’t know what the fuck is going on. while nearly every pundit/reporter/activist/partisan gobbles down loads of friedman/huntington/lewis/etc and claims to understand the ‘arab mind’, the 'arab street', the nature of freedom, and what the founding fathers would have done, filkins hangs in the ‘known unknown’ camp: he waits and watches.

it’s tough, as I write this in 2009 for those who supported the war to defend their position. and tougher, perhaps, for those who were 100% opposed to it to understand that there was a noble side to this thing. not necessarily a noble side to the bush administration’s motives, but a noble byproduct in the removal of saddam hussein. y'know, the guy who gassed tens of thousands of innocent kurds, threw tens of thousands of his own people into torture chambers and rape rooms, waged one of the bloodiest and most pointless wars of the last century (with absolutely no result other than millions of corpses), invaded kuwait, encouraged suicide bombings by offering cash rewards to the families, shot at planes in the no-fly zone, and was set to leave his demented creation to sons who were zealous practitioners of rape torture and murder.

one aspect of president dipshit’s legacy is that, once again, american intervention has been totally and thoroughly discredited. and for the most part this is a good thing. but, still, american intervention, preferably with NATO or some other alliance, could have cut short the rwandan genocide. after taking its thumb out of its ass, when america finally committed, it took down milošević and ended that genocide. and it sickens me that congress didn’t even bother to seriously debate sudan. but, these are not easy questions, and after reading filkins’s book it feels even more maniacal to subject anyone to the shit he describes. but the triumph of the book -– after the insider's view of combat (perhaps the most harrowing i've ever read) and terrific character studies of marines, insurgents, extremists, iraqi civilians, chalabi, bremer, etc -– is that i can only imagine the most rabid partisan, the most extreme wingnut of the right or left, refusing to rethink –- if only for a brief period -– all they felt certain about before.

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Dec 29, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When you invade and break countries, bad shit usually happens.

Doesn't always have to, but the dial leans that way.

Good shit happens too, but it needs nurturing, time, and a whole pile o' shit-ass luck, especially when what was broken is used to seeing it all go down through a different set of goggles.

The bad shit needs little prompting—it's nature's wily stunted bastard child hopped up on Skittles™ and chuffing smoke.

Be very careful when you break shit like countries. Try and think things throug...more When you invade and break countries, bad shit usually happens.

Doesn't always have to, but the dial leans that way.

Good shit happens too, but it needs nurturing, time, and a whole pile o' shit-ass luck, especially when what was broken is used to seeing it all go down through a different set of goggles.

The bad shit needs little prompting—it's nature's wily stunted bastard child hopped up on Skittles™ and chuffing smoke.

Be very careful when you break shit like countries. Try and think things through a bit. Prepare for it all going Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooie.

'Cause that bad shit, that horrible, nasty bad shit always seems to be just waiting to happen.

* * * * *

Along with Jon Lee Anderson's The Fall of Baghdad , this book occupies the top tier of Iraq War reportage that I've so far partaken of. Following a tense and cacophonous prologue through the darkness-drenched, bullet-riddled environs of insurgent Falluja circa 2004, Filkins—whose survival of one scenario fraught with peril after another comes eventually to take on the appearance of a not-so-minor miracle—warms up the reader with a brief-but-informative glimpse at pre-9/11 Afghanistan and its new Taliban liberators/oppressors. These chiaroscuro slide-show revelations perfectly set the stage for the vignettes from war-torn Iraq that comprise the majority of Forever, leaps back-and-forth through time and across the flat Iraqi desertscape to provide a jigsaw view of the progression of the original conflict between the United States and the army of Saddam Hussein into a sectarian uprising featuring Sunni and Shiite insurgencies and militias in action against the American liberators/oppressors and their native allies. The one common element throughout is death, ofttimes impassionately narrated by Filkins and which offhand manner—especially when used as a brisk end punctuation to the deceased subject's anecdotal depiction—somewhat paradoxically comes to generate a powerful hold upon the reader. This termination of life affects US soldiers, reporters, and contractors, though the vast majority of the dead are citizens of that unlucky land, in many cases simply the victims of having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

As other reviews have pointed out, Filkins does not wade into the politics of invasion and subsequent occupation, though his own anguish, rage, and despair can be detected limning the stories stamped upon the printed page. The lack of an effective US plan to deal with a leaderless realm whose infrastructure had suffered from military strikes and post-invasion looting, the inscrutable nature of the Iraqi populace in their dealings with the Western Power, the nihilistic savagery of the insurgency cells, and the blossoming of razor-wire barriers, blast walls, and military checkpoints as new and alienating features of the urban maze of antebellum Baghdad form strong underlying elements of the collected stories' structure; particularly effective, in my opinion, are the brief interludes in which Filkins describes his daily routine of jogging the banks of the Tigris river near the hotel in which he was established and his interactions with the Iraqi citizens—guards, police, merchants, restauranteurs, children—whose paths he crosses while his running route becomes incrementally walled-off from the coterminous and increasingly dangerous residential neighborhoods. The sad doe-eyes of the little girl in The Kiss and the sinister adulthood which surrounds her devastatingly sums up the miasma of post-millennial Iraq in a few snatches of brilliant writing. Chaos and orphans are the commonest offspring of civil warfare; Filkins records their grim proliferation even while allowing the reader to see the attempts by, and admire the courage of, those doughty individuals, American and Iraqi both, who are struggling to craft a more enduring and meaningful legacy for all of the bodies claimed by the violent breaking and remaking of this tripartite Mesopotamian nation. There is little hope on display here, but little is not the same as none.(less)

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Jun 17, 2009 Lucy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Dexter Filkins, the author of The Forever War, is a New York Times foreign correspondent who covered the middle east from Afghanistan's Taliban rule in 1998 to Iraq through 2006.

I should probably confess right away that I'm not a fan of journalism. I resent the whole idea of getting information from people who are in the business of selling it. I don't know what the alternative would be, but still....it seems like a conflict of interest.

On top of that, there is the issue of bias. We all have it....more Dexter Filkins, the author of The Forever War, is a New York Times foreign correspondent who covered the middle east from Afghanistan's Taliban rule in 1998 to Iraq through 2006.

I should probably confess right away that I'm not a fan of journalism. I resent the whole idea of getting information from people who are in the business of selling it. I don't know what the alternative would be, but still....it seems like a conflict of interest.

On top of that, there is the issue of bias. We all have it. I'm not sure it's possible to communicate without it. So, when it's somebody's job to write/talk/share about an issue, I don't believe anyone is completely able to leave it out. It's a lot more obvious to detect when your own bias stands in opposition. I can't read Arianna Huffington or Ann Coulter without some serious eye rolling, but Peggy Noonan? I think she's brilliant. I think she's fair. I can't see her bias as easily, but I'm sure that's because I agree with her, most of the time.

I must agree with Dexter Filkins too because I had a very hard time detecting any bias in his book. The Forever War doesn't give a chronological time line of the war on terror, or even a history or reason for the conflict up to this point. Instead, the book's focus is much more narrow. Using small snippets from his observations, conversations and the various situations he found himself in as an American journalist living in a fundamental Islam dominated middle east, the war takes its own shape without much molding from the author. Through Filkin's reporting, the war is viewed from many various perspectives. The Taliban's, Afghani women, American soldiers, American politicians, American ambassadors, Iraqi Sunni's, Iraqi Shiites, Kurds, hardliners, moderates, families, women, children. Iraqis as gracious hosts. Iraqis blind to American goodwill. Iraqis determined to keep their country in chaos. Iraqis as the neighbor or friend you wish you had.

As he sometimes traveled under the protection of the US Forces, he was able to observe their behavior too. Like their Iraqi counterparts, soldiers and military leaders ranged from the truly valiant, noble even, to complete jerks. But, because he told individual stories and reported moments in time as they happened, very few of his reports are tinged with the burden of hindsight or the sensationalism that I so loathe. It's incredibly present. A snapshot with words.

Filkins manages to keep himself out of his reporting most of the time as well. Even when he's part of the story, such as when he runs in shorts that he knows bothers Muslim modesty, it's not about his running or even his legs, it's about the Iraqi guard's humor, generosity and discomfort. When he's not part of the story, his presence is hardly noticeable. For example, he doesn't editorialize an interview with an Iraqi jihadist. The emotion, that spills out of the pages is one of the jihadist's single-mindedness and hatred for the infidels, not of Filkin's response. No apologies. No excuses. When he's interviewing a 19 year-old American soldier from Pearland, Texas, the pages fill with the soldier's optimism, hope and unquestioning obedience to his superiors, not Filkin's east-coast, Harvard educated sensibilities.

Sometimes, the book becomes more than raw reporting. Sometimes, Filkins allows his own confusion and conflicting emotions to tell this story too. Like the time he gets lifted into an angry anti-American mob, and his certain soon-to-be death, but before any harm befalls him, he is pulled back into the safety of his car by his Iraqi driver. Gratitude for one Iraqi and fear of another. Conflict.

If there should ever be required reading on the present day conflict in Iraq, The Forever War should hold a place at the top of that list. While it is a book that no doubt Filkins hopes will sell, I don't think he's trying to sell a view of this war to the left or to the right. Instead, like a meaningful piece of art, he captures what war is - past, present and future: hope, corruption, fear, courage, sacrifice, weariness, destruction, honor, death and change - all together. Forever.(less)

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Nov 25, 2008 Buck rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: pro-patria-mori

Technically, The Forever War is a work of reportage - magnificent reportage, in fact - but that's not all it is. For one thing, Filkin's tone is at times more personal, more anguished, than conventional journalism usually allows. For another, the cumulative impact of the pieces is beyond the literary reach of your average hack reporter. I'd suggest, then, that it belongs to that growing subgenre known as survivor literature: traveller's tales, in effect, brought back from a netherworld of human...more Technically, The Forever War is a work of reportage - magnificent reportage, in fact - but that's not all it is. For one thing, Filkin's tone is at times more personal, more anguished, than conventional journalism usually allows. For another, the cumulative impact of the pieces is beyond the literary reach of your average hack reporter. I'd suggest, then, that it belongs to that growing subgenre known as survivor literature: traveller's tales, in effect, brought back from a netherworld of human suffering.

Filkins spent years in post-invasion Iraq, living entirely outside the Green Zone, and he got to know the country as well as any non-Arabic speaking Westerner could be expected to - and much better, I'd guess, than just about any American official you could name. What's great about Filkins, though, is his intellectual modesty. He's not afraid to show us his sheer, lip-twiddling confusion in the face of some intractable bit of Iraqi reality, and to use his own incomprehension as an index of the wider myopia besetting the occupation.

One instance among dozens: Filkins is interviewing an insurgent whose brother has allegedly been murdered by a rival faction. Out of nowhere, the leader of that other group comes along and sits down at the next table. Filkins senses an 'animal tension' in the air and readies himself for a gunfight. The two adversaries spring to their feet and then, with all the fake bonhomie of Long Island party girls, they set to hugging each other and promising to get together some time. Here, as with so many of Filkin's vignettes, there's a sort of invisible, authorial 'wtf' hovering between the lines.

Or take his portrait of Ahmad Chalabi, the slippery political operator and former darling of the neo-cons. Filkins honestly doesn't know what to make of him. Is he an American stooge? An Iranian puppet? A political genius or a cynical rogue? For Filkins, resting as he does in a negative capability rare among journalists, that very ambiguity is the point:

It wasn't just that he was brilliant, or nimble, or ruthless, or fun. When I looked into Chalabi's eyes and saw the doors and mirrors opening and closing, I knew that I was seeing not just the essence of the man but of the country to which he'd returned. L'etat, c'est lui. Chalabi was Iraq.

Whatever your political convictions, whatever your views on Iraq, they're going to be, at the very least, recalibrated by The Forever War . On the one hand, nobody but the most indefatigable cheerleader of the war could fail to be revolted by the sadistic lunacy unleashed in the aftermath of the invasion. Of course, we've always known about the Shi'ite death squads with their electric drills and the Islamist nutjobs with their snuff films. But Filkins makes this vast collective nightmare all the more real and terrible by putting faces to the names and sketching in all the ghastly little human details. It's hard-going at times, but it's absolutely essential, I think.

On the other hand, anyone espousing the more simple-minded pacifism of the purblind left is bound to be equally troubled by Filkin's reporting. And maybe, just maybe, the supposedly humane middle ground where many of us huddle nervously is not a viable option, either. I don't know, I really don't. But neither does Filkins. That's one reason I trust him, and one of the many reasons I admire him.(less)

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Sep 25, 2008 Jim Coughenour rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: politicalinsight

I have a shelf of books on Iraq & Afghanistan –mostly unfinished because the absurdity and the carnage, the futility and mendacity, are too dispiriting and I have to put them down. Filkins has written something different, a first person account of what it's like to be in the midst of American soldiers and Iraqi citizens – his book is a series of vignettes, carefully observed and plainly written. It pretty much avoids the political background and concentrates on the foreground, people he know...more

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Apr 04, 2009 Naeem rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Naeem by: John Hickey (Ithaca College librarian)

I withheld a star despite my belief that this book MUST be read; read today.

Filkins writes about his experiences as a war reporter in Afghanistan and Iraq (mostly the book is about Iraq). It is composed of short, medium, and long vignettes. He makes no effort to connect them.

It works as fiction works, implicitly. Mainly Filkins describes his situations and leaves his readers the job of interpreting. Some of these are as mundane as jogging along the Tigris river. Others are in the middle of fire...more

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Sep 24, 2008 Jesse rated it 5 of 5 stars

The best book yet on Iraq, from a Taliban execution in 1998 to the WTC, where Filkins sees an intestine lying on the ground, to Iraq, where an attempt to get the story gets a Marine killed. Visceral, smart, funny, and pained (the acknowledgements mention, in passing, that these experiences destroyed his marriage), with sweeping, memorable images of devastation and meaningless absurdity mixed with short-short stories--a fitting equal to Herr's Dispatches, and also sneakily alluding, I would guess...more

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May 20, 2009 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, history, journalism, war

Terrific. My only complaint is that the story ends before more current events, such as the Surge, take place. (I’d love to read Filkins on-the-ground take on that.) However, there is a moment late in the book where Filkins interviews an Iraqi terrorist who is getting more than a bit sick of Al-Qaeda (the "foreigners") killing fellow Iraqis. It's something of a sea change, since the result is an ordered hit against two Al-Qaeda gunmen. I was also hoping for more on Afghanistan, probably because i...more

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Dec 22, 2008 daysgoby rated it 5 of 5 stars

I can't remember who recommended this book, so I don't know who to thank...but I walked away from this book with my mouth open, shaking my head in awe.

This man can *write*. He brought scenes from war-ravaged countries into my living room, and found a way to accentuate both the devastation and the quiet small moments, creating a book that horrifies and educates and gives you hope, all at once.

Really, read this.

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Jan 29, 2009 Visha Burkart rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Tim, Dad, everyone!

Outstanding war-writing from a respected and talented correspondent/writer. After so many disappointing books written by hacks, Filkins manages to elevate the status of "war-memoir-as-written-by-a-reporter." Filkins does not offer solutions, but he objectively presents a picture of what is going on in the Middle East, what our strengths and weaknesses are, and the devastating fact that there will be no easy resolution to this forever war. Highly recommended; one for your permanent bookshelf.

A lo...more Outstanding war-writing from a respected and talented correspondent/writer. After so many disappointing books written by hacks, Filkins manages to elevate the status of "war-memoir-as-written-by-a-reporter." Filkins does not offer solutions, but he objectively presents a picture of what is going on in the Middle East, what our strengths and weaknesses are, and the devastating fact that there will be no easy resolution to this forever war. Highly recommended; one for your permanent bookshelf.

A long-time foreign correspondent, Filkins gives a very complete picture of the complex situation in the Middle East. Starting in Afganistan in the late '90s, the book opens with a graphic execution scene in a soccer stadium. Filkins shows the Taliban and the war lords, the Washington power-players, the grimy enlisted men, the informers, the orphans, the wild dogs, the attempts by the military to build beautiful parks and the ineptitude in those types of ideas. I was impressed by Filkins' ability to give credit to others, to admit his own defeats and guilt, to feel frustrated at his country's inability to provide a real picture of what is going on in Iraq and particularly in Baghdad.

I respected this book in part because Filkins does not take credit for any bravery, luck, or victories. He is not an enlisted man, only a reporter, and unlike so many others, he doesn't insinuate that any of their qualities are transferred to him by osmosis. In fact, Filkins gives the impression of having been massively changed for his assignment in the Middle East; perhaps not entirely broken, he is bruised and battered by his experiences, and admits in his acknowledgements that his own home life has suffered because he can't let go. I also respected the excellence of his writing - the language of the book is beautiful yet straightforward, and Filkins has masterful timing - each chapter resulted in a strong emotional reaction from me. I don't often cry when reading, yet I sobbed freely when reading this book, but never more than at the end. (less)

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Jan 15, 2009 Jeremy rated it 5 of 5 stars

I wish there were a six-star rating. I've been reading a lot of Iraq and Afghanistan war books lately and this one is heads and shoulders above all of them. Not because it uncovers any sort of unique secret truths, but because of its artful and engaging prose. Filkins, a NY Times reporter, largely tells his own story of being on the ground in Iraq. By doing so, he gives the reader an entree into the experience that would be impossible if he had used a detached, reporter-like voice. It's well wor...more

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Jan 17, 2009 Clare added it

The Forever War - I had been thinking, it seemed like a long time: I was in high school when we invaded Iraq, I was in college and we were still there, I graduated college and not much has changed, only news coverage of the war has decreased as we've moved on to other wars. But since Dexter Filkins starts his book in Afghanistan, and it looks like we'll be there until the end of time, too, you get the sense that he could keep adding chapters to this book until it grew to a multi-volume set. As f...more

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Dec 13, 2008 Emily rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Powerful writing about (for most of us Americans) unimaginably horrific experiences. It's difficult to write about this book without sounding trite or sentimentalizing it - words seem inadequate. Honest and painful, remarkably apolitical, it draws the reader in to this terrifying place and forces the reader to acknowledge and confront situations that I'd prefer to pretend couldn't possibly be real. I had to stop several times to allow myself to digest what I'd read and attempt to distance myself...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Garrett rated it 5 of 5 stars

Dexter Filkins, a New York Times reporter, spent somewhere in the neighborhood of a decade reporting on developments in Iraq and Afghanistan. He watched the current US wars unfold. In The Forever War , Filkins reports his stories in bits and pieces. He likes to be where the action is and find out what people are thinking and doing. He talks to soldiers, Iraqi citizens, warlords, political leaders, and insurgents. Amidst all the chaos he describes, Filkins goes to great pains (often literally) to...more

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Nov 13, 2008 Map rated it 5 of 5 stars

What an amazing book, one of the best I've read this year. Dexter Filkins makes the Iraq War—the experience of war itself— visceral and immediate. You smell the cordite, the burning flesh, the stink of fear; feel the anxiety, the exhilaration, the sorrow, the anger, and the numbness. He doesn't try to make sense of the insanity; he records it as he saw it, offering background and context that no newspaper story or radio report, by its very nature, can relay.

A reader emailed Filkins in Iraq tell...more

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Sep 13, 2008 Laura marked it as to-read

Shelves: to-read-adult-nonfiction

Did anyone else read the review of this in the NYT Book Review this weekend? Here's a glimpse of the review: "It is not facetious to speak of work like that of Dexter Filkins as defining the 'culture' of a war. The contrast of his eloquence and humanity with the shameless snake-oil salesmanship employed by the American government to get the thing started serves us well."

Or this:

"The work Filkins accomplishes in 'The Forever War' is one of the most effective antitoxins that the writing profession...more

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Nov 19, 2008 Kathleen Gilroy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Gripping, horrifying grounds-eye view of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Filkins was the New York Times correspondent for both wars and his book is a series of beautifully written set pieces about what life was like on streets for civilians, soldiers, and journalists. He seems to risk his life to get the story and thank goodness he lived to tell this tale.

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Aug 05, 2011 Urey Patrick added it

Shelves: terrorism, military-modern-era

This reads more like a stream of consciousness journal of experiences, interactions, observations during the author's several years in Iraq and, to a lesser degree, Aghanistan. He lives among the inhabitants and writes nicely of them and their lives. His account moves, chapter by chapter, from disturbing images and acts of depraved brutality to moments of routine humanity colored by the culture and ethos of Iraq to acts of heroism and sacrifice to mundane moments of unremarkable routine. Not muc...more

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Aug 03, 2011 Mark Sequeira added it

A well-written, exciting, 'easy-to-like' book that is also pretty negative on America's impact/war in Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems to either have been written during (or from notes written during) the height of the insurgency so that might account for some of the negativity. Still, it gives an important counter-point to much of the 'everything is going swimmingly' accounts out there. (Are there such accounts out there?...Probably not in print anyway. Maybe talk radio?) I think the thing that I...more

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Feb 09, 2009 Trena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Trena by: DC Public Library

I picked this book up from a library display because I really know nothing about the Iraq/Afghanistan war. The author is a reporter from the New York Times who spent some time in Afghanistan and several years in Iraq.

Although there is somewhat of an agenda to the book, it is not a treatise or in any way intended to be a policy statement or overall analysis of the war. It seems more to be a collection of anecdotes that never fit into any NYT stories. This works for me; like "What is the What" fo...more

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Apr 26, 2013 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 28, 2013 Taylor Holmes rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: rise-of-the-übermensch

This book is not about war. Or the length of war. Or war's foreverness. Or even about war in the middle east, or how terrible war is.

This book is all about Dexter Filkins. And what a @#$@$ @#$@@#$@# he is. Dexter gives us no answers or even ideas about war in the middle east. But he does give us a gorgeous lens in to his own soul.

We are there as he is ushered into a soccer stadium in Iraq and all of a sudden someone is driven out into the middle of the stadium and beheaded. Minutes later, the...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Mikey B. rated it 5 of 5 stars

In many ways this is a very straight-forward account of the American occupation of Iraq. The beginning of the book is about Afghanistan (about 70 pages) – then it shifts to Iraq. The author does not follow a narrative or time-line flow.

He explores themes and focuses on the individuals involved. For the most part he does not judge – that is left to the reader. Mr. Filkins is an excellent observer and recorder - it is this situational documenting that allows us to learn and evaluate. And we do ind...more

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May 18, 2012 Jake Seymour rated it 5 of 5 stars

How do you wage war on an enemy you cannot see? How do you win over a population that plots behind your back? These are difficult questions to answer, yet these challenges faced every strategist and every soldier that ever set foot in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dexter Wilkins, a journalist who spent extensive time in both countries during their most volatile points, collected all his thoughts on the war and his experiences and wrote The Forever War. In it, Wilkins details all of his encounters with...more How do you wage war on an enemy you cannot see? How do you win over a population that plots behind your back? These are difficult questions to answer, yet these challenges faced every strategist and every soldier that ever set foot in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dexter Wilkins, a journalist who spent extensive time in both countries during their most volatile points, collected all his thoughts on the war and his experiences and wrote The Forever War. In it, Wilkins details all of his encounters with the people of these two broken countries. “There were hospitals in Afghanistan filled with patients, burned and twisted; they just didn’t have any medicine or any doctors. There were schools, plenty of them, at least in the cities, only they were empty” (p. 21). Wilkins does a great job giving the reader a mental image of how the constant fighting takes its toll on the people.
Throughout the book, Wilkins has a chance to meet with many of the people who live in these conditions. He is able to shoe the reader, not just his own opinion, but the story from the very people who live it every day. Wilkins sits down to talk with warlords, soldiers, fighting for both sides, government officials, again from both sides, and people off the streets. The most interesting part about hearing the opinions of the civilians in countries like Iraq is hearing what they think of the war. “’I take their money, but I hate them,’ Alawi said. ‘I am cooperating with the Americans for the sake of my country. The Americans are occupiers. We are trying to evict them.’” (p. 125). For the longest time, the story here in the states was that the U.S. was making progress and that the Iraqi people were beginning to like the Americans. Wilkins shows repeatedly that this is not true. The Iraqi people see the Americans as occupiers and only want them gone.
The most interesting aspect of the war that Wilkins describes is the unknown. The fact is, American soldiers are fighting an enemy they cannot see, an enemy that blends in with the population, because it is the population. At one point in the book, Wilkins is attached to a squad of Marines doing recon in the city of Mosul. The Marines were tasked with finding members of Sadam’s old Republican Guard and handing them over to the Iraqi people for trial. The search goes on for hours and, eventually, Wilkins breaks off from the squad to interview some of the locals. He arrives at a group of men standing on a street corner, conversing about the day so far. Wilkins asks them if they know the location of any members of the Republican Guard, they respond simply, “We are the Republican Guard. All three of us. When we heard the Americans were coming, we took off our uniforms. We are not cowards, but we will not fight today” (Wilkins, p. 105). The soldiers cannot tell a civilian from an insurgent because they look exactly the same. You only see the difference when one points a RPG at you.
At different intervals in the book, Wilkins accounts the time he spent with multiple units of American soldiers he was attached to. The soldiers, ironically, have the same mistrusting attitude toward the Iraqis that the Iraqis have towards the soldiers. “As we drove on, I asked Kaifesh whether he had considered the possibility that he was giving money to the same people who were mounting attacks against him and his men. Or at least the people who knew the people that were. ‘No question,’ Kaifesh said. ‘We are giving money to people who do bad things.’” (p. 127-128). Wilkins is able to show how much of a struggle it is for these soldiers to go about their daily tasks. Besides the danger posed by the enemy themselves, it is frustrating to know that the funding an officer just gave for that new school was used to buy RPG launchers used on his men.
What I like the most about this book is not only does the author spend time with military units in both sides, but Wilkins also spends a portion of the book interviewing civilians. The war is not just being fought by armed soldiers holding firefights in the streets, but also by the people who live on those streets. The building that Marine just took cover in is somebody’s home. The rooftop the insurgent is shooting from is probably some Iraqi’s house (if not his own). The problem with fighting a war like this is that civilians will be caught in the crossfire. At one point, Wilkins is driving through a town that was just the target of a massive American bombing run. The place is deserted at first, but then Iraqi civilians start coming out if these destroyed buildings. They run up to his Jeep and beg for help and tell about their family member that lays dead only a few feet away. Yes, the American bombing run was successful, but at the cost of some many lives.
After I read this book, the thing that struck me most was the title. It truly got to me after I read the last chapter, put down the book, and read the title again. It hit me like a ton of bricks how much the title fit the book. Reading the book and seeing the struggle each person, civilian and soldier alike, face is disheartening. The book does a fantastic job of humanizing every party involved. The Americans are not unstop-able super-soldiers, but a very human group of soldiers, frustrated while trying to complete their mission. The Iraqis are not evil super villains trying to destroy the world, but freedom fighters, trying to escape an occupation they do not want. The book, overall, is depressing towards the end because you, the reader, begin to see the same hopelessness so many people fighting the war feel. It truly feels like a forever war.

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May 08, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 4 of 5 stars

This splendid work by Dexter Filkins is the most disturbing book of this or probably any other year for me. If Filkins’ on-the-ground, in-your-face accounts of the physical and psychological brutality of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq weren’t enough by themselves (and they are), I have in addition the experiences of a niece recently returned from Baghdad. As a USAID executive, she wasn’t exposed to nearly the level of blood and guts that Filkins was, but she saw things she can’t talk about, wa...more This splendid work by Dexter Filkins is the most disturbing book of this or probably any other year for me. If Filkins’ on-the-ground, in-your-face accounts of the physical and psychological brutality of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq weren’t enough by themselves (and they are), I have in addition the experiences of a niece recently returned from Baghdad. As a USAID executive, she wasn’t exposed to nearly the level of blood and guts that Filkins was, but she saw things she can’t talk about, was under constant bombardment even when she was in the Green Zone, and had an excursion to Mosul that anyone would be glad to forgo. So, coupled with her conversations and e-mails, The Forever War is a volume that will live with me for a long time. I asked her last night if she’d read it. She nodded and changed the subject.
As a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and then The New York Times, Filkins served lengthy tours first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. The Taliban arrested him and kicked him out of the former country, and he went to Iraq shortly after the American (whoops, “coalition”) invasion. Thus, he has a unique perspective on pre-post 9/11 conflicts in both countries. His experiences have obviously left him with a large dose of emotional distress, and the pain seethes on every page.
The Forever War is structured rather like a narrative non-fiction picaresque; i.e., a whole story told in short episodes. Much of the material has appeared in other forms in the newspapers he worked for, much of it gleaned from voluminous notebooks. There is little here of overt political opinionating. That, the reader must infer from the events and characters that inhabit the narrative. And there is plenty to infer, of which more later. However, the most poignant and potent aspects of the book are his unsparing insights into the human costs of war in general (an unfortunately timeless old story) and of this particular war (new twists in that old story). When I say “unsparing,” I’m talking of the author as well, for (among other tales) he recounts the story of a young soldier killed by a sniper while climbing to the top of a minaret to help him (the correspondent) get a picture of a dead insurgent. He later (talk about guts) meets (more than once) with the boy’s family in the states and finds them (unfathomably) grateful for his writings about the incident.
There’s the story of a Christian family forced out of their home, choosing between death or exile to Syria. Stories of Shia and Sunni practicing ethnic cleansing on one another after decades of living together without apparent rancor (except, presumably, toward Saddam.) And dozens more.
Threaded through all these is the story of Filkins’ own struggle to keep somewhat sane, somewhat centered amidst utter chaos. His insistence on a routine of five-mile runs in 100 degree heat; his bewildering attempts to interpret the information he gets (or doesn’t) from his Iraqi informants, from our own military, from the CIA; his attempts to overcome the horrors of seeing his colleagues kidnapped, killed, decapitated; the horror of his own near kidnappings and death; his attempts to deal with his feelings about ugly deeds of our own troops. All this makes for a potent stew and tough reading.
Underlying it all is the picture of societies disintegrating. Particularly Iraqi society. The Afghanis had imploded sometime around the time the Russians left, and was already in bad shape when he arrived. Or is it Islamic society disintegrating? Or is it, as some would contend, Islamic society continuing as it always has? Filkins never says so, but others would.
I’m reminded of a New Yorker piece I read back in the days when the Soviet Union was falling apart. It told the tale of a man in an obscure Eastern European village, a man of middle age or so. He was a near-vegetable. The family fed and clothed and bathed him. He didn’t do much. Sat in the corner, walked around a little bit, chatted some. A doctor came, examined the man, determined he had a nutritional deficiency of some sort, corrected for it, and the guy suddenly became more or less normal. Within six months he was dead--from a cancer that had been kept in semi-remission by the low metabolism of his “deficiency,” but flourished with the new nutrition. An apocryphal story, surely, but the analogy was that all the tribal and religious animosities that had been kept dormant by Soviet repression, not allowed to be worked through, erupted in volcanoes like the Serbo-Croation conflict. Thus, also, are we given the Sunni/Shiite ugliness in Iraq? There was a lot of mixing between the two denominations under Saddam. My niece’s best Iraqi employee at the embassy was a young lady (now studying in the U.S. and perhaps staying in our house this fall.) who is the product of such a mixed marriage. Such matches aren’t happening now, she says.
Apparently, though, the Shia’s and the Sunni’s have been at it for some time all over the Arab world. Some posit that such conflicts are inherent in savage Islam. You’re supposed to kill unbelievers, and if you run out of Hindus or Christians or Jews, you make unbelievers our of your fellow Muslims to satisfy the inherent bloodlust of your faith. Such would be the conclusion of another author I read recently, Michael Cappi, in his A Never Ending War. However, Cappi’s book (self-published since I guess, no publisher would buy it either out of lack guts or demand for better scholarship. I can only guess.) is a collection of facts and omission of facts and distortions of history all carefully arranged to fit his preconceived conclusion--that Islam is basically bloodthirsty, and essentially incorrigible and dangerous to itself and others. Take just this statement near the beginning of the book for illustration: Even during periods in history when horrific abuses to tolerance occurred at the hands of the West, it was in spite of the prevailing philosophy and not because of it. And most importantly the return to the basic beliefs always followed any behavioral aberration. I’m reminded of what a devout family man and churchgoer the Godfather was.
On the other hand, it could be the tribe that’s the most important--more than country or religion--at least in the impoverished rural areas, especially in Afghanistan. Filkins recounts stories of soldiers changing sides according to who paid better or seemed stronger, serving not any central state, but preserving real loyalty only to their tribes. National borders and governments were abstractions. In Iraq as well, he talked to men who moved back and forth among Iraq, Syria, Iran, staying with family, not country. So how far can the West hope to get with the nation-building in a climate like that?
Filkins draws no conclusions, offers no predictions, though his title might imply one. No war, no society, lasts forever, and this one won’t either, even if it seems so. Filkins is smart enough to know that, so perhaps he’s speaking of a war against the transcendent evil of the human soul which manifests eternally in different forms--radical Islam being one of the worst. I do assume these terrorists are not reformable and need to be eliminated or neutralized. Nor can one imagine Saudi women free to wander around in mini-skirts any time soon. However, there are distinct strains of Islam which offer clear examples and demonstrate clear possibilities of peaceful coexistence. As well, there are millions of Muslims living around and in Western society who do not bomb or behead their neighbors. Unfortunately, those sort don’t make for very good TV, so the radicals and the misfits get to dictate the images on our screens and in our minds. I simply have no place in my being for the notion that a whole religion, nation, or other such segment of humanity, can be dismissed and defined as ineluctable brutes. The rich once thought that about the poor, whites about blacks, Indians, Chinese. It’s what some Jews and Arabs think about each other. With the way that’s working out for both of them, why should we seek to imitate?
And such are the meditations that I predict The Forever War will lead you to. Open it at your own risk.
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Mar 23, 2012 Jonathan Gala rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a book I think I need to read again, because the story it tells, and the events that took (and are taking) place, are so morally and intellectually fatiguing that they drained from my mind a few months after reading it.

I thought I was outraged by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that in reading this I would get in touch with a more personal perspective while gaining some substance to my arguments against the wars. What I remember from the book is being totally deflated in my outrage...more

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Mar 03, 2012 Timothy Bazzett rated it 5 of 5 stars

First off, let me say Dexter Filkins is one helluva good writer. Secondly, I have to tell you that I could only read this book in small portions, a chapter or two at a time, and then put it aside for a time to digest the horror and near hopelessness of what he was describing about his several years - yes,YEARS - spent reporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. During those months and years, Filkins made it a point to get to know the men and officers he worked with and wrote about them, unsentim...more First off, let me say Dexter Filkins is one helluva good writer. Secondly, I have to tell you that I could only read this book in small portions, a chapter or two at a time, and then put it aside for a time to digest the horror and near hopelessness of what he was describing about his several years - yes,YEARS - spent reporting the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. During those months and years, Filkins made it a point to get to know the men and officers he worked with and wrote about them, unsentimentally, but still in ways that will break your heart. Here's a brief sample.

"Corporal Nathan Anderson was dead. He was a lanky kid from a small town in Ohio who was always taking his buddies' spare change to raise money for his sister's college tuition. Af few days before, after we'd run through machine-gun fire to cross 40th Street, Anderson had braved gunfire to go back and rescue his friends. Anderson's buddies did the same here, charging into the gunfire to get him. He'd died in their arms."

There are so many small stories of lives cut short here, they will make you weep. Cpl Romulo Jiminez, a hot rod fanatic from West Virginia, shot through the spine, dead. Sgt Lonny Wells, who loved to play poker and "knew all the probabilities," killed by gunfire crossing that same 40th Street. Cpl Gentian Marku, an Albanian immigrant who came to the US at 14, shot and killed on Thanksgiving day. I almost had to turn away as I read these short personal histories, but Filkins did his job; he told their stories.

"There wasn't any point in sentimentalizing the kids; they were trained killers, after all. They could hit a guy at five hundred yards or cut his throat from ear-to-ear. And they didn't ask a lot of questions. They had faith and they did what they were told and they killed people ... Out there in Falluja, in the streets, I was happy they were in front of me."

During his time in the wars, Filkins crossed paths with people you've read about in the newspapers - Paul Bremer, the various commanding generals who have come and gone in the two theaters of the "forever war" on terror. He even crossed the border into Iran and sat in on a meeting between Chalabi and Ahmadinejad. He takes you into the maze-like intricacies of intrigue and vengeance that are common in the tribal systems that have held sway in this region for centuries - things that western minds can simply not comprehend. He makes you feel the grime, the sweat, the unrelenting 100-plus degree heat that permeates everything - in Baghdad, Kabul, Kandahar and Ramadi. You will jog with Filkins along the Tigris river where he is pursued by packs of wild dogs and intimidated by Iraqi checkpoint guards - an insanely dangerous routine he can't seem to stop. Filkins put himself in harm's way repeatedly and always managed to narrowly avert capture and death, and not a few times because some young soldier saved him - at great sacrifice. He is still haunted by those times, and wonders if it was worth it, particularly when he is confronted by a woman who has just voted in the first democratic elections in Iraq -

"'I voted in order to prevent my country from being destroyed by its enemies,; she said ... What enemies, I asked ... 'You - you destroyed our country,' Saadi said. 'The Americans, the British. I am sorry to be impolite. But you destroyed ou country and you called it democracy. Democracy,' she said. 'It is just talking.' ... "

Filkins realizes with sadness that East does not meet West, that there is perhaps an uncrossable chasm between the two cultures that can never be bridged. THE FOREVER WAR is fine journalism, a book that should stand beside the works of Ernie Pyle and Bill Mauldin; a work to be shelved between Herr's Dispatches and O'Brien's The Things They Carried. (less)

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Jan 07, 2012 Merritt Phillips rated it 4 of 5 stars

Very eye opening told by an eye witness to what really happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. Some great exerpts:

Iraq was a con game.

"They are all playing us", Kaifesh said, arching his eyebrows.

Democracy as we know it is a disease.

Overnight the Iraqi police, the Iraqi national guard and the Iraqi army disappeared.

"Abu Hishma Resident ID," the card said in English. Not a word was in Arabic.

"They tell their children they better be good. Or Colonel Sasserman will come to get them."

It's an axiom of jour...more

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Jul 27, 2011 Wes Bishop added it

This is an amazing book. Shortlisted for the Pulitzer prize, Dexter Filkins account of the wars in Afghanistan to Iraq, plunges the reader into America's major military operations for the first decade of the 21st century. From the streets of Baghdad, to Taliban controlled Afghanistan, to ground zero in New York City, Filkins earns the readers trust from page one because unlike many writers he has no political ax to grind, no agenda to further. Instead he is a rare example of an honest to god rep...more

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Oct 30, 2010 Gerald rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-on-tape, current-events, other-cultures

How dangerous is life in Iraq, Dexter Filkins, author of The Forever War, states that the NY Times is paying a $14,000 a month life insurance premium for him while he lives in Iraq. The book is full of frightening examples of the danger that exists, not just for an American journalist, but obviously for the soldiers but also for virtually every Iraqi.

In my opinion, rather than interpret the motives and meaning of what is taking place, Mr. Filkins reported on what he saw taking place as he lived...more

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